The subject matter disclosed herein relates to coating components and, more specifically, to transportable modular coating systems and methods for coating turbine components.
In gas turbine engines, such as aircraft engines for example, air is drawn into the front of the engine, compressed by a shaft-mounted rotary-type compressor, and mixed with fuel. The mixture is burned, and the hot exhaust gases are passed through a turbine mounted on a shaft. The flow of gas turns the turbine, which turns the shaft and drives the compressor and fan. The hot exhaust gases flow from the back of the engine, driving it and the aircraft forward.
During operation of gas turbine engines, the temperatures of combustion gases may exceed 3,000° F., considerably higher than the melting temperatures of the metal parts of the engine which are in contact with these gases. Operation of these engines at gas temperatures that are above the metal part melting temperatures may depend in part one or more protective coatings and/or on supplying a cooling air to the outer surfaces of the metal parts through various methods. The metal parts of these engines that are particularly subject to high temperatures, and thus require particular attention with respect to cooling, are the metal parts forming combustors and parts located aft of the combustor.
For example metal temperatures can be maintained below melting levels by using one or more coatings, such as thermal barrier coatings (TBCs), applied via a coating process (e.g., a thermal spray process). However, the thermal spray process may require large rooms to hold all necessary thermal spray equipment and help contain the operation within a closed environment. This may be similarly true for other components such as generator features or other to-be-coated substrates. As a result, coating process may be performed in a finite number of locations using fixed equipment. This may also limit the ability to quickly and conveniently deploy coating cells to different facilities such that coatings can be applied to components such as turbine components in the field in a more standardized fashion.
Accordingly, alternative transportable modular coating systems and methods would be welcome in the art.